Impact

Rev. Thoms, Myself, Chris, Peace, Alisoun & Lori at the Women's Coop

10/11/10: We met the young woman from Butare today. She is a beautiful, intelligent person and came on a 2-hour bus trip just to see Lori, her clothes in a paper sack. Lori was in a meeting, so the 3 of us, the interpreter & the young woman went to see the National Genocide Museum here in Kigali. It was very different from the ones in the field. There were pictures, explanations of the history, videos, interviews, & hundreds of pictures of the victims before the genocide that their families brought in. The young woman from Butare was deeply affected & stood frozen in front of one of the videos. We walked all the way back (about 45 minutes) to help her release, & when we returned to the motel Lori was able to help her get back to her smiling self. When we expressed concern about her emotional state, she told us the genocide prepared her for anything & there is nothing that can happen to her now that she cannot handle, & that she knows God saved her because there is something she is to do. Create Global Healing gave her the money to pay her back rent so she can return to Kigali. She will be one of the young people the International Youth Healing Center will help when it opens.

Back at the motel we filmed the interpreter singing songs she wrote & will put it on YouTube. She has a beautiful, moving voice & is very talented, but no resources to pursue her talent. She doesn’t know how to read or write music & wanted to take a class but couldn’t get off work to go. I wrote out basics of music writing on a napkin & told her to find a music store & get a book. She has excellent English & is very bright & will teach herself.

Synchronicities continue to happen—one of the board members of the orphanage was just invited to be part of a government conference next week on vocational training programs so will e-mail the full report to Lori. A friend of Lori’s just lost his job while we were here & he has many contacts that will help set up the center & now has time to set them in place. We were going to walk the interpreter to the taxi stop but the dirt roads were solid mud puddles & we were headed back to pay the motel manager to drive her when a car pulled up & offered her a ride for free. The wife of the couple from Uganda who have a project to bring safe water to Africa & who are advising the orphanage went to UCSB & has mutual friends with Lori. The founder of the community coop who knows all the important political people just happened to come to the motel when our interpreter friend who needs a better job showed up & they made a good connection, etc.

It doesn’t seem possible that we leave Rwanda tomorrow. This will be my last blog from the field. I know it will be weeks, maybe months, before I realize the total impact of this journey. I have lived in a culture so different from anything I even knew to imagine that returning to life as usual is not an option. It remains to be seen how I integrate this experience into a new way of being. I now know that there are no differences great enough to divide people who come from love.